WELCOME to Connected Rights, your cherry on the cake of digital rights news and analysis. FIRST THINGS FIRST! As many of you will know, last year I published a book called Control Shift: How Technology Affects You and Your Rights. Well, I've now decided to give it away for free, so please go ahead and download … Continue reading Free stuff alert! I’m giving away my book on digital rights

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your rustling in the leaves of digital rights news and analysis. LEADING EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS ARE TRYING TO LOBBY for the introduction of ancillary copyright across the EU, in the form of Article 11 of the new Copyright Directive. Google and Facebook are apparently "fleecing…the media of their rightful revenue". Look, this is … Continue reading On copyright, some media turkeys are lobbying for Christmas

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your jewel in the cuckoo's nest of digital rights news and analysis. THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION IS PREPARING TO ABANDON the whole self-regulatory thing around takedowns of terrorist content. Per security commissioner Julian King, there hasn't been "enough progress" from the platforms, and "we cannot afford to relax or become complacent in the … Continue reading Are online platforms tools or privatised law enforcement?

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your bird on the wire of digital rights news and analysis. IT'S FINALLY BOILING OVER DOWN UNDER: the government of Malcolm "The Laws of Mathematics Are Very Commendable" Turnbull has unveiled its Assistance and Access Bill 2018, to combat the terrible threat posed by encrypted communications. The bill would allow new types … Continue reading Time to take on a new anti-encryption law

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your hadron in the collider of digital rights news and analysis. GOOGLE PULLED OUT OF CHINA EIGHT YEARS AGO over the country's censorship requirements and state-sponsored hacking. But now, according to multiple reports, the company is planning a return, with censor-friendly search and news aggregation apps being developed under a project codenamed … Continue reading Google, China and InfoWars: Online censorship hits the headlines

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your ham in the slow cooker of digital rights news and analysis. A NEW EU LAW COVERING THE PRIVACY OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS appears to have stalled in the legislative process. The Council of the EU, currently led by the Austrians under a rotating presidency, is supposed to figure out a common position … Continue reading “Democracy needs resistance” – the ePrivacy reform is in trouble

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your bun in the oven of digital rights news and analysis. A DECADE'S WORTH OF BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARIES WRONGLY authorised the intelligence agencies to collect as much telecommunications as they liked, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal has found after a lot of bugging (pardon the pun) by Privacy International. Essentially, the foreign secretaries … Continue reading When spies get to decide surveillance is OK

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your slice in the toaster of digital rights news and analysis. MICROSOFT HAS DONE SOMETHING VERY UNUSUAL FOR a big tech firm. It has warned that a recent, popular technological development – facial recognition – is dangerous and needs regulating. In a blog post, Microsoft legal chief Brad Smith said facial recognition "can … Continue reading Even Big Tech is worried about facial recognition

WELCOME to Connected Rights, your gambol through the wheat fields of digital rights news and analysis. FACEBOOK WILL INCUR THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE FINE in the UK over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) announced today. That fine is only £500,000, because the incident happened in the pre-GDPR days, but it's still not a … Continue reading Tech’s perversion of the democratic process

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About the author

I’m David Meyer, a tech journalist with more than a decade’s experience writing about technology. I’ve covered many topics in that time, though I’m most interested in the policy decisions and technological breakthroughs that will shape our world. You can find me on Twitter as @superglaze and on Facebook as @davidmeyerwrites.